by Mavis Cheek
The vicar reached them, puffing a little. He really was the shortest man of God that Dulcima had ever seen, and his sermons, delivered from a rather fine seventeenth-century pulpit, gave him the air of taking part in a Punch without the Judy. ‘What’s this all about, vicar?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea at present. None whatsoever, Sir Roger, none whatsoever, but my guess is that it will be to do with the Gnome again. The goings-on tend to get going on that creature from about now …’
Dulcima turned her cornflower stare on him and he appeared to become even smaller. ‘Goings-on?’ she said coolly. ‘Why, vicar, whatever do you mean?’
Fortunately for the vicar they had reached their goal and an answer was not required. Dulcima twinkled a smile at her husband, who twinkled a smile back. A rare moment of intimacy for which Sir Roger looked fleetingly grateful.
‘No one seems to have any idea why we are all invited to this meeting,’ she said. ‘Mrs Webb told me about it. She’s not coming because of her legs.’
Both men received this statement with as much intelligence in their expressions as they could muster.
‘Quite,’ said the vicar.
‘Only one way to find out what’s cooking,’ said her husband, and grunted forward to beat the puffing vicar to the gate. He opened it with a flourish that filled the vicar with envy, and in Dulcima swept making a gracious if slightly meandering way up the path.
‘Well I have no idea,’ she said grandly. As if the lack of knowledge somehow gave her authority. Sir Roger gave another grunt possibly to convey the thought that she never had very much idea of anything nowadays after noon – and absolutely none by dinner – and up the steps to the front door they went. Sir Roger rapped loudly on the old panels with the head of his cane, an activity he enjoyed, never having had enough fun with his drum as a boy. The vicar jumped and the door was opened by an obsequiously smiling Miles. The party prepared to walk in past Miles’s bow.
‘Don’t close the door,’ called a voice behind them. The party on the steps turned to see Peter Hanker and Julie Barnsley half running across the road. Miles was not entirely pleased. Those two could probably sink a galleon of sherry and never notice. ‘Who’s looking after the pub?’ he asked waspishly.
‘Billy Webb’s mother.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Mrs Webb?’ said Dulcima, apparently without guile.
Behind Miles, standing in the hallway, Dorcas let out a snort.
‘Billy is the potboy,’ she said quietly to Miles. ‘And his mother used to run the Happy Rest in Glastonbury.’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Miles.
‘No,’ said Dulcima, ‘I shouldn’t think you have.’
Miles gave her a quick look but, as usual, she seemed entirely innocent of irony. ‘Is she the woman with the front garden full of gnomes?’ he asked.
‘That’s her,’ said Dorcas, happily.
‘Ought to be thrown out of the village,’ he said firmly. Mrs Webb’s garden was on the same side of the village street as Hill View House and its array of gnomes – windmills, wishing wells and a variety of plastic artefacts connected with gnomery – was often photographed by passing visitors whose laughter awoke in Miles’s breast quite the opposite emotion.
‘She does for us,’ said Lady Fitzhartlett. ‘Legs or no legs.’
Miles opened his mouth, thought better of it, looked perplexed, and closed it again.
‘Well – shall we come in or shall we stand here all night, Whittington?’ Sir Roger tapped his cane impatiently and stuck out his chin. Miles was a very silly name for a very silly man, in his opinion. Might just as well call a man Inch.
Miles quickly popped his head round the doorway and looked back up the street before retreating into his hallway.
‘Just waiting for the Porlocks,’ he said. ‘No sign of them yet. Come in, come in, come in.’
Unaware of being considered silly, in this as in so many other matters, Miles was all warmth and smiles again as he ushered the Fitzhartletts into the sitting room. He left Peter and Julie up by the front door where they belonged. Dorcas gave Dulcima a little smile as she went past, and might have smiled at Marion but she was never quite sure … How wonderful, thought Dorcas, for people to never quite be able to read your eyes and know your thoughts.
‘You’d hardly expect me not to attend, now Miles,’ called Peter affably, to Miles’s retreating back, ‘since it was my old ancestor who brought the thing back to life for the village in the first place.’
‘And I hardly think that’s something to boast about,’ said Miles without even bothering to look round.
Peter laughed and squeezed Julie’s hand as if to say they were going to have some fun, and Julie squeezed his back until she remembered and snatched hers away.
Miles disappeared into the sitting room, Dorcas slipped in behind him, and Peter and Julie followed. But while Peter seemed quite at ease, even with his rejection, Julie looked very far from it as she entered the room. Julie was on the warpath – and wearing her warpaint accordingly. Nigel had been elusive for days now – and it was time to take a stand. If he wanted thigh he could have thigh. Julie had made hers available in the form of a very short skirt indeed.
Donald and Winifred left by their back door and were in time to see Pinky and Susie in the distance stomping down the lynchets behind their house, which was the short cut to the village. ‘Surely they’re not coming,’ said Donald.
‘You are such a snob, Donald. Why ever not?’ said Winifred, waving at them. ‘It’s a general meeting. Probably about our famously endowed figure. And given how much they use the Gnome, it would be very unfair not to consult them in any matter that affects him. Despite his singular failure to send them forth to multiply, they are his greatest fans.’
‘Ridiculous nonsense,’ said Donald, banging the door and locking it. ‘Let’s be quick or they’ll catch up and she’ll be asking me even more questions about how to get pregnant.’
‘Ah,’ said Winifred, leading the way around the garden path to the front, ‘Pregnant. What a lovely time that was. You were still ready to change the world then.’
Donald did not know what to say to that. Was she mad? His memory of his wife’s pregnancies was far from lovely. Indeed, his memory of most of the women who had passed through his hands with their pregnancies was nothing like lovely. Mostly he had felt very sorry for them, the gap between the dream as sold in magazines, and the reality as experienced in the nine months, being very wide – as, indeed so often were they.
Winifred, he remembered, had one of the largest crops of haemorrhoids he had ever, in all his years as a medical practitioner, seen. Like grapes, they were. Lovely? Lovely was not a Winifred word, nor was the linking of it with the memory of her pregnancies a Winifred-like connection. He gave a covert glance at his wife. She looked bright eyed enough, with pinkness in her cheeks and her hair washed and combed so he could not say what worried him. But ever since the teapot incident he felt that Winifred was changing – and not for the better – and he was slightly anxious about her. And himself. And the safety of his clothing. He had never in all his married life felt anxious about his wife. Until now. She had been the perfect doctor’s wife, performing her duties quietly and efficiently, feeding him warm and nutritious meals – if not very tasty ones – at the appropriate times and always knowing what he was supposed to be doing and when. And she had long since ceased to mention notions of changing the world. But there was a distinct difference nowadays and he did not quite know how to go about bringing it into the conversation. Despite the fact that she was washed and combed and looked as she ought, there was a restlessness about her, an unpredictability, that did not bode well.
They made their way with rapid gait in the direction of Miles’s house. It was not something either of them enjoyed, being late. Donald had a try at relaxed conversation. ‘Feeling all right dear?’ he asked, as nonchalantly as he could. But Winifred seemed not to hear. On she hurried and Donald
had a job to keep up with her. Behind him he heard the unmistakable sound of a ‘Cooee’, and knew that the Smiths had reached the village street. He increased his speed – good for the heart after all – and by the time he and Winifred reached Hill View House he was in far too much of a lather to worry about anyone; teapot-toting wife or barren patient. Up the steps they went. Donald rearranged himself to look the part of the respected village doctor, and in they were ushered.
Reaching for his glass of sherry, Miles was startled by more knocks on his door. He was convinced that the invited were now all assembled and that the talk by Miss Bonner – Molly – could begin. He was eager for this, eager for her to get on with it, eager for her to convince the gathering so that the payments could commence. He was also rattled because Dorcas was handing round another tray of very full sherry glasses and could not therefore be called upon to fulfil parlourmaid duties. Miles sighed, put down his sherry glass, and went out to open the door. There, in monstrous profusion, stood the Smiths. And while Pinky only looked like Pinky if perhaps a little more so than usual, Susie, thought Miles, was like a cloud, a miasma, an escaping emanation of purple. Her hair was tied up in a frothy bow of purple material, her shawl was knitted and of the deepest purple, her dress beneath it was purple to its very foundations, wherever they might be. But the crowning, or rather shodding non-glory of it all were Susie’s tiny, purple boots with little black bows all down the front. It looked as if, were Miles so inclined, he could give her a tap and set her rocking, like a wobbly woman in an old toy room. He just about managed to restrain himself.
‘You!’ he said.
‘Us!’ they chorused happily, and with a smile and a nod they passed under his outstretched arm, into the passage and down through the door into the sitting room. It was perfectly clear that neither of them thought there was anything untoward in their arrival. After all, as others would attest if pushed, the Smiths were practically the guardians of the Gnome, or at least the couple who kept him most active. Susie smiled around at everyone and when Dorcas arrived with her tray, Susie smiled even more broadly and said, very loudly, that she had better not in case the Gnome had finally done his duty by her. Pinky winced, picked up one glass and drained it, put it back and immediately took another. It was all Miles could do to stop hurling himself at Pinky’s florid person and punching him.
Taking Susie’s coy comment to mean that orange juice was required, Dorcas asked Julie (out of habit) if she might have one, and Julie (also out of habit) went off to the kitchen, found one in the fridge and returned with it. Almost mindlessly she twisted the lid with one, deft screw, picked up a glass, and handed both to Susie saying ‘That’ll be one pound forty, please.’ And Susie, who was quite as caught up in the whole thing as Julie, delved around within her purple and came up with the right money. Julie thanked her, slipped it into her pocket, and turned back to the group by the fire before she realised what had taken place. ‘I am not on duty now,’ she said, to nobody in particular and attempted to insinuate herself between Winifred Porlock and Nigel by the fire.
Nigel moved back a little. He could read sparks and he knew Julie was capable of astonishing rage. He had once seen her frogmarch Billy Webb’s big brother Lexy out into the night when he had made a derogatory remark about the state of the beer and her part in it. He must be on his guard for although he had forsworn her, he could not quite avoid the uncomfortable yet titillating thought that Julie was dressed to kill. Or maybe undressed to kill was more accurate. He took his eyes off her knees and sought out Molly’s wonderfully vivid hair and lips. The rest of her, in his opinion, was a tad disappointing and the pull of Julie’s outfit was great.
If Julie’s skirt could not match the style and bounce and pinkness of the archaeologist woman’s, it was an honourable rival. Made of shiny tan leather it could, so Peter had remarked with a grin, be mistaken for a belt. Above this she wore a gold lurex top, and (to use more delicate language than the coarse phrase) mate-with-me golden shoes. If she had any doubts about the effect of this ensemble, Peter’s reaction – a very loud whistle of approval – had dispelled them. The group by the fireplace contained Molly, who was staying at the pub and smiled a smile of recognition as Julie settled herself next to Nigel. Julie was pleased, if a little rattled, to see that this time the Bonner woman (she could not bring herself to think of her as anything other than an alien without a Christian name) was not wearing anything of a sensational nature. If you avoided looking at her hair and her face, she was very plain. Really very plain.
Molly, having judged the gathering well, was clad in an ordinary grey skirt that did not reach above her knees, and a white shirt. Only her vivid, sharply cut hair hinted at something not quite conventional. She was definitely outshone by the lurex and leather. But Nigel did not seem to mind the plainness of the outfit, observed Julie crossly. He – no doubt about it – was gazing adoringly at her – as he had once gazed adoringly at Julie (and, as she was aware, several others before her). A slight sensation of embarrassment suddenly blew a warm blast about her face and her most generously presented chest. In an instant she knew that she was overdressed. The Bonner person was not overdressed. The Bonner person was discreetly cool and wisely elegant. The Bonner person had judged the occasion perfectly. And if the Bonner person had not gained the whole of Julie’s wrath before, in her sartorial wisdom she sure as hell incurred it now.
Julie, closing her eyes to the thought of her balcony bra and what it was doing, thought (as she tried hard not to do) of her mother, a Deardon from Wicklow, who married a Byrne had nine children and a dropped womb and ended up in a mixed ward not knowing whether she was washing the copper from her miner father’s eyes or winding the cottons for her mother’s threadwork. And buried in a common grave for want of money. Julie would not be like that, Julie would not be anything like that – and even though she knew that being a pub landlord was a reasonable living, and that Peter was hers for the taking, if her father was anything to go by the proximity of drink to the man was not a wise one for the woman. Money was happiness. A lot of money was total happiness.
Nigel’s position was perfect on two counts: he did not own a pub and he did own (or would one day) a successful, respectable business. When she arrived in England Julie had changed her name from Byrne to Barnsley – the Irish not seeming to be overly welcome and, she fancied, the name sounded honest and reliable, just as she was hoping to become. Nigel’s father owned the shop that Nigel would inherit, Nigel’s father owned shares in all the big companies – in gas, in electricity, in water – everything – and Nigel’s father was a gentleman. Now that’s what I call security, she reminded herself, as she moved swiftly to his side and tried not to think about Peter and his very gratifying whistle. Peter, of course, being her employer, and for a silly bit of time her lover, knew the secret of her past, but he seemed not to think of it as unusual. Only one who had lived through the Tinker and Bog-trotter insults could know that it was.
*
Winifred gazed about her at the clutter of the sitting room and the view of the Hill beyond the window. She was on her third glass of sherry and – delicious as it was – she decided that she would merely hold it and not touch it. Sherry went to her head and knees more quickly than anything – except perhaps pictures of Sean Connery when he had hair – and she did not want to fall down. Or rather, she did quite want to fall down which made it all the more imperative that she stay upright. Donald was looking at her a little nervously, not for the first time, and although he seemed to be in close conversation with the archaeologist, she nevertheless felt that he was willing her to be good. Winifred hoped to talk to Molly Bonner about the area and the archaeology of it, but for the moment she kept this knowledge to herself. After two glasses of sherry, large glasses, she might have burst into tears at the memory of those far-off joyous days of having a career.
If she had not been quite so hemmed in by the very large and very hot fire she might have made her way towards Dryden, Dulcima and Sir R
oger – who were in the throes of quite an animated conversation – and taken pity on poor Marion who looked extremely bored. Or at least, Winifred thought she might be looking bored. On the other hand she might be looking riveted. It was difficult to say. But then Miles was suddenly by Marion’s side with that dreadful leering smile of his that was supposed, Winifred concluded, to denote the deepest interest in anything Marion uttered. Which was not, it seemed, very much. Dorcas looked across at the two of them mischievously. Someone had suggested to Miles that though the age gap was considerable, Marion had evinced a very definite liking for him in a way that was not altogether platonic. And while Marion might not be Edward in matters of future inheritance, she was unlikely to be left without a bob or two come the day …
*
Miles was definitely struggling. He opened his mouth as if to say something, letting his eyes move from one side of Marion’s face to the other, seemingly hedging his bets, and had not had time to utter the first syllable of his suggestion that he and Marion might take a walk together soon. Of course, she would prefer a ride together, but Miles was not very good on a horse and knew he would not look at his best. He would need boots and a hat if nothing else, and such things were costly. True, it might be sprats to catch mackerels again (he looked anxiously around at the way everyone was swigging away, just swigging away) for she was a woman of considerable fortune to come, but still. His thoughts were broken by the vicar who popped up his head between them, somewhere near chest level. Miles glared. The vicar smiled. Marion looked at the ceiling. Miles’s face was not entirely good to look at even though it had changed its expression.
Winifred, seeing the diversity and musing at the trio, thought that he really was suprisingly short for a man of God. ‘What a pity no one thought to give him any hormone injections when he was a boy,’ she muttered to her husband. Donald gave Molly a painful smile, nodded at his wife, said ‘Ah well,’ as noncommittally as he could, and turned back to his interesting conversation with Miss Bonner, but it was not the same now that Winifred had said something mad. He gave Molly an apologetic smile and Molly smiled back, but she did not seem much concerned by Winifred’s non sequitur. A mature and honest young woman, he thought to himself, and rather strange to find such an attractive female bothering about fossils and the like. But just as he embarked on this interesting chain of thought his wife’s words came back to haunt him ‘Hormone injections?’ he thought. ‘Dear God, no.’ Molly wondered, as she described the very first time she ever found a trilobite, what it was that had made the nice doctor suddenly seem so wild about the eyes.
